Part 56 (1/2)

How it hurt Raoul he knew, because when he thought of destroying the picture it was as though a knife were twisted in his own heart.

One afternoon De Vilmarte nursed Hazelton from cafe to cafe, listening to his n.o.ble braggadocio.

”Remember,” Hazelton urged Raoul, ”the wonderful Mongolian legend of the father and son who loved the same woman, and whom for their honor they threw over a cliff! That's the idea-the cliff! You shall throw our love over the cliff-you shall destroy the picture yourself. Come back with me!” He was as though possessed. Full of apprehension, De Vilmarte followed him.

They stood before the picture. It shone out as though indeed light came from it. Hazelton put the palette into De Vilmarte's hand.

”Now, my friend, go to it!” he cried. ”Paint, De Vilmarte-paint in your own natural manner! A few strokes of the brush of the great master De Vilmarte, and color and light will vanish from it. Why not-why not? You suffer, too-your face is drawn. You think I do not know how you hate me.

I don't need to look at you to know that. We always hate those who have power over us. Paint-paint! If I can bear it, surely you can. _Paint naturally_, De Vilmarte! Paint into it your own meagerness and ba.n.a.lity!

Paint into my masterpiece the signature of your own defeat.”

The afternoon was ebbing. It seemed as though the room were full of silent people, all holding Raoul back-his world, the critics, his fiancee, his mother. Besides, he had no right to destroy this beautiful thing to save his honor.

”You are not yourself,” he said.

”Aha! I know what you think of me. Ha! De Vilmarte, but I am a master, a great painter. Paint, and betray yourself. Ha! _sale voyou_, you will not? You are waiting to steal from me my final beautiful expression. You stand there- How is it that you permit me to call the Vicomte de la Tour de Vilmarte names? Why do you not strike me?”

”Oh, call me what you like,” Raoul cried. ”Only finish the picture.

There is very little more to do.”

”I tell you what I shall call you,” Hazelton jeered at him. ”I will call you nothing worse than Raoul-Ra-oul-Ra-o-u-l!” He meowed it like a tom-cat. ”How can I be so vile when I paint like an angel, Ra-o-u-l ...

Ra-o-u-l!”

Sweat stood on Raoul's forehead. He stood quiet. The picture was finished.

”Sign, my little Raoul, sign!” cried Hazelton. And with murder in his heart, a bitter tide of dark and sluggish blood mounting, ever mounting, Raoul signed and then fled into the lovely spring evening.

”This is the end,” he thought. ”There shall be no more of this. Not for any one-not for any one, can I be so defiled!” For he felt the mystic ident.i.ty between himself and his mother-that he was flesh of her flesh, and that in some vicarious way she was being insulted through him.

But it was not the end. It was with horror that Raoul learned that the picture had been bought by the state, that he was to receive the Legion of Honor. His mother was wild with joy.

”Now,” she cried, embracing him-”now I can depart in peace.” She looked so fragile that it seemed as if indeed her spirit had lingered only for this joy. She looked at him narrowly. ”But you have been working too hard-you look ill. A long rest is what you need.”

”A very long rest,” Raoul agreed. He left the house, and, as if it was a magnet, the great exhibition drew him to it, and in front of his picture stood the thick, familiar figure of Hazelton, his nose jutting out truculently from his face, which was red and black like a poster. He broke through his att.i.tude of devoted contemplation to turn upon Raoul.

”Bought by the state!” he cried. ”To be hung in the Luxembourg!” He pointed menacingly with his cane at De Vilmarte's neat little signature.

”Why, I ask, should I go to my grave unknown, poor, a pensioner of your bounty? Why should you be happy-feted?”

The irony of being accused of happiness was too much for De Vilmarte. He laughed aloud.

”Wouldn't it be better for you to be an honest man?” croaked Hazelton.

”Only death can make an honest man of me,” answered De Vilmarte.

”_My_ death could make an honest man of you,” Hazelton said slowly. It was as if he had read the dark and nameless secret that was lurking in the bottom of De Vilmarte's heart.

For a moment they two seemed alone in all the earth, the only living beings. They stood alone, their secret in their hands.